For the über-Road Warriors - those who spend their lives on the road

With 25-40 business trips in a year, the “rewards” I reap is pretty good. It pays for the mini-vacations which I take with my husband and son, with no resulting problems with the company since I try to avoid wrong T&E expense declarations.

So, you might say that my ears always perk up whenever there is a corresponding mileage for purchases other than those I need to make during my business travels.

However, before making that purchase, it always is best to compute first whether buying that certain product or service is worth the miles that I am going to earn.  Would the, say, service fee I need to pay in order to get the miles be worth it?

This leads us to the question “what’s the value of these miles?” 

FrequentFlyerMiles has a great explanation…

The value of each mile depends on how you use them.  To find the value, you need:

Total dollar cost of the ticket you would buy with your miles: Be sure the dollar price of the ticket is for one that is similar in restrictions and advanced payment to the conditions on using the miles. Usually this is a discount ticket sold by either the airline or a consolidator. Be sure you have the total cost, including taxes and fees.

Total miles you would lose by using miles to acquire the ticket: This includes both the miles you pay to get the ticket and the miles you would have gotten by buying the same ticket with dollars.

The number of dollars you would have to spend anyway by acquiring the ticket with miles: You will pay departure, and excise taxes, security fees, and anything else your airline thinks it can get away with when you use miles to acquire a ticket. These charges can amount to over $100.

So how much exactly (in dollars and miles) would it be?

• First subtract the dollar charges for using miles from the dollar cost of buying the ticket. This is the dollar amount you save by using miles.
• Then add the miles you would get by using dollars to buy the ticket to the miles you would be charged for the ticket if you were to use your miles to get it. This is the total number of miles the ticket would cost you.
• Now divide your dollar savings you just computed by the total miles you just computed to find the cost per mile.

I would have to point you to this site once again for a detailed example using a specific flight, with specific $ cost and mileage.  I have never seen an analogy this specific and detailed.  I am impressed.  And I have learned a lot. You will, too.